The discussion below is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Aspects of the invention concerns a transmission mounted in a housing between a turbine and a generator on top of a tower of a wind turbine known wind turbine drive systems include an input gear train connectable to the drive shaft rotated by wind energy, and a plurality of hydraulic circuits interposed between the input gear train and the generator. The input gear train is part of a gearbox.
The known gearboxes support the bearings for the gears and the housing supports the gearbox. In situations where dimensions increase such as the length of the blades also the dimensions of the rotor bearing and the main gear increase and the rotation speed of the blades decreases. Due to the increasing dimensions, the conventional solutions for supporting the rotor shaft with two bearings located at some distance are no longer desirable as they lead to complicated solutions for the foundation of bearings in order to prevent undesirable changes in dimensions due difference in temperature in various components and at various positions in the housing.
In order to avoid the complicated solutions in the known designs a single bearing supports the rotor shaft. However in the known designs dimensional deviations of the desired dimensions and/or deformations as a result of the high loads still occur in the gearbox and this leads to undesirable risk in the construction of the gearbox.